Peter Maximoff v Life, Terrorists, and Awkward Family Conversations
by schweinsty
Summary: After any global, life-changing event, there's bound to be an adjustment period. Most of the world takes a deep breath, reassesses genetics, and keeps on keeping on. Peter's adjustment period is A) longer and B) considerably more complicated.
Quick Note: I tried to indent the bullet points so hard, but the editing box wouldn't save my changes right; so whenever you see numbers in a list, just imagine they're all indented. Also, it didn't let me do arrows? So sections 22 and 43, where there's a list of things with dashes (-) in between, those should be right arrows. Sorry about that, y'all.

Warning: This story is rated for violence and torture. Bad things happen to a character, including kidnapping, torture, and mental manipulation. There are more detailed content notes at the end, in case you need them.

 **Peter Maximoff v Life, Terrorists, and Awkward Family Conversations**

1\. So, here's the thing about Peter: he's not actually an idiot. Oh, he can pull off a good impression of one when he needs to. Crateful of Little Debbies got stolen off a moving truck? _But Officer, I was in the park with my kid sister all morning, in plain view of a dozen adults who'll swear I never left!_

His reputation as a thief is due to some admittedly stupid slip-ups in the seventh grade regarding his school locker and the cafeteria's steadily dwindling supply of pudding. Police get called. His mother's brought in for a parent-teacher-detective conference. Peter's forced to apologize, grounded for a month, and pays back the school with money from his paper route.

In his defense, however, the stupidity of that incidence is borne of ignorance, and afterwards, Peter vows never to let himself get caught again.

He soon realizes two things:

. 1. Police officers are just people, and can be petty as fuck

. 2. Making promises about things you have no control over is stupid.

They can't pin anything on him hard enough for it to stick in court, but they pay him visits anyway. Take him in for questioning, threaten him with jail, harass his mom. Eventually, his mom just takes out her pocketbook whenever they come around.

Eventually, Peter stops bothering to hide in public and hides inside his home instead.

* * *

2\. Home is better than school, anyway. Peter's not a huge fan of school.

He actually likes it when he first starts out. They're in New York, then, where they live in a small apartment in a big building with dozens of other interesting people. His mother has a different accent and wears long-sleeved shirts and cardigans whenever she goes out so no one sees her arm.

His kindergarten teacher's very pretty and smiles a lot. Her name is Blaire but one of the smaller kids can't pronounce it correctly, so she tells them to call her Ms. B. Peter likes her. She doesn't mind that he wriggles in his desk all the time, as long as he doesn't get out of it, and one time, when she catches him running the way his mom told him not to, she makes him stop but doesn't tell anyone else. She visits his apartment after school that evening and talks with his mother for a long time. She comes to see them a lot after that, at least twice a week, stopping by for supper or looking after Peter on Saturday afternoons whenever his mom has to go in to work.

Then one day she doesn't come over, though his mom waits and waits and calls in sick to work. Ms. B doesn't go to school on Monday, either, though there are a couple policemen in the halls who talk to some of the other teachers in the principal's office during classes.

On Tuesday, Peter's mother packs the car, and Peter never goes back either.

The new school isn't as nice. The other kids make fun of his hair until Tommy says it's silver because Peter's sick and going to die, and after that nobody plays with him at recess. His new teacher's mean, too, and raps his knuckles when he can't sit still even though everyone else is

just

so

slow

.

Things don't really improve until high school, when for a brief, few weeks his hair goes from being a bizarre stigma to a misperceived act of rebellion, and the notoriety's enough to get several girls interested in him.

Then he kisses one for the first time ever and, well. Walking, talking, listening, touching, hugging—everything he does is a constant adjustment to everyone else bumbling around like flies drenched in amber. It's easy enough once he's there, but every time he goes in and out of his own normal speed he has to adjust back, and sometimes—if he gets caught up or distracted—sometimes he drops back to human speed in his mind but the rest of his body takes a second to catch up, and he ends up kicking a hole in the soccer ball or pouring water into the space where a glass just isn't quite there yet.

Turns out kissing people is really distracting.

One slobbery chin and a change of pants later, not even the misfit stoners he used to hang out with will come near him at lunch, and class after class after class is a test of restraint that Peter's sure he's going to fail at sooner or later.

So he drops out instead.

* * *

3\. In between the first set of rapped knuckles and the dropping out there was Rick. Rick was well-respected in the community, a journalist of high esteem. Rick was trustworthy, because Rick had a gift like Peter's that he had to hide. Rick was also secretly an asshole, in diverse and varied ways.

Rick is no longer around.

(Also: Peter's mom is seriously a badass when she's angry. Peter already knew this, because, hi, years of not-entirely-undeserved police harassment: great for showing you how a person will react under stress! But this was something else entirely.)

Before he left, though, Rick helped bring about Wanda, who's the cutest, most perfect snugglebug of a baby who's ever existed. She sleeps through the night early on and doesn't fuss a lot and learns her letters faster than all the other kids at the daycare.

Two days after he quits school, Peter finds her levitating two feet above her bed at naptime.

His mom and him both agree it's best if he stays at home and keeps an eye on her for a couple of years, until she learns how to keep a damper on things long enough for school.

* * *

4\. It's not like he holes himself up. Completely. He steps out. Sees people. Goes to any concerts within a hundred-mile radius. Gets a lot of practice in dealing with distractions of all sorts of kinds and genders. Does things. Tries things. Gets drunk one time and finds out what vomit looks like when it splatters on cement you're running over faster than the eye can see.

He just doesn't do any of that with the same people more than once. Practice is practice, and he doesn't start out perfect, and you can only write off something like him as a really weird trip so many times.

It doesn't matter, anyway. He's happy, as he tells his mom repeatedly, hanging out and watching after Wanda, and it actually helps his mom so he feels less like an asshole some of the time. He finds ways to stave off boredom, and, when they get boring too, he finds more ways. These efforts take up a lot of space, sometimes, and finding more and more things kind of becomes a thing in itself, sometimes, but that just means he has something else to take up more of the time that stretches out in front of him when he wakes up every morning. It's not perfect, but it's a life.

* * *

5\. And then one Saturday Professor Asshole shows up.

Okay, he's not a complete asshole. Not all of him. He's not 'Beneath this veneer of civility I'm an absolute dick', he's more like 'Beneath this veneer of intoxicated druggery I am 95% heart of gold, 1% ego, and 4%, which is a small but undeniably quantifiable percentage, complete and utter prick'. He's not bad, though, as people go, and neither are the other two guys with him, and also:

THEY'RE JUST LIKE PETER.

Well. For various definitions of 'just like'. But they're weird, too, and the only person Peter's met like him before was Rick, and Rick actually was an absolute prick. And Wanda's too little to count. So that's exciting. Also exciting? Breaking someone out of jail. And this isn't even just jail, it's the Pentagon! So Peter doesn't think too long before he says he'll go with them.

For two point five hours, he even starts admiring the guy.

That's his first mistake.

* * *

6\. His second mistake is actually breaking the guy out of prison.

JFK, man. Freaking JFK. Dude's a psychopath.

* * *

7\. Two point five hours after they come to his house, the prison elevator makes it to the kitchen, and Peter realizes three things in rapid succession:

. 1. Admiration of people you don't know as well-rounded characters is stupid

. 2. What's worse than one asshole in a room? Two assholes in a room.

. 3. Even worse? Two assholes who clearly never went to a proper kindergarten where they teach sharing, caring, or dealing with feelings in a constructive manner.

Of course, breaking back out is too much fun for him to be bothered about it.

* * *

8\. Erik, though.

Erik's kind of a weirdo, even for someone who's supposed to be like Peter.

He keeps staring at Peter, all the way from the Pentagon to the airport. It's more than a stare; it's this bizarre, intense non-glare that Peter can practically feel burning into his scalp when he looks away. It really doesn't help that they're squashed next to each other in the backseat, arm to arm and thigh to thigh, Peter in the middle between him and Hank, who, oddly, has decided to take the opportunity to nap, tugging his ridiculous hat over his eyes and sprawling out all over his side of the seat so Peter has to huddle up to the assassin. The assassin who won't. Stop. Staring.

"Thank you for helping me, Peter," Erik says apropos of nothing twenty minutes into the trip. He unbuttons his still-soaked shirt and slips out of it carefully, quite solicitous, at least, of where his elbows do and don't go. He's wearing a slightly-less-soaked cotton undershirt, and drops the sodden button-up between his feet. "You have an amazing power."

Charles says "Erik," then, with a warning sort of tone that Peter doesn't understand, and Erik looks like he's about to ruffle up and snap something in response, but he stops when he catches Peter staring at his arm.

His arm, which has a very familiar tattoo on it.

"Sorry," Peter says when he realizes he's been staring (because he's not an uncivilized asshole. When he doesn't want to be). "My, uh. Your tattoo. My mom has—my mom has one. Like it. Too."

His face floods with warmth, then, because now Erik's stare has gone up several degrees in intensity, like he wants to bore into the depths of Peter's soul. This, at least, Peter understands, because if Erik's anything like his mom, he really, really doesn't like when people look at it.

"Roma?" Erik asks after a second.

Huh.

"Yeah, how'd you kno-"

The car jerks just then, bucks hard enough to pitch Peter head-first into Hank's chest and wake him up. By the time they all get resettled again, Erik's started a conversation with Charles, asking details about where this airstrip is and what's been going on in the world lately, and Peter doesn't get a chance to get a word in edgewise after that.

He doesn't think about it again until after he's dropped the car off at a dealership near his house.

* * *

9\. Then mutants get revealed live on national television.

* * *

10\. So:

. 1. Admiration of people you don't know as well-rounded characters is not only stupid, it's dangerous.

. 2. Even people who mean well can make horrible mistakes.

. a. Even if they seem really smart and talk a lot about saving people and helping all of mutantkind

. 3. There's a reason breaking dangerous people out of prison is frowned on and it is, in retrospect, a pretty damned good reason.

* * *

11\. When it's all over, his mother switches the TV off, tells Wanda to play outside, and sits Peter down at the kitchen table. It's time to tell him about his father, she says.

She tells him the truth. He throws up.

He tells her the truth, too. She holds him very close and makes him promise he'll never use his gift for something wrong again. That, at least, is within his power to keep.

* * *

12\. Everything changes. Nothing changes.

It takes forever for Wanda's programs to come back on TV, afterwards. It's all 'Who are these mutants?' and 'What does this mean for our country?' and 'President Nixon invites mutants to come out into the open' for weeks. They're finally crowded out by the Watergate hearings.

One anonymous couple gets hired to write a column in the Times: 'I married a mutant/I married a human'. It boosts sales of the paper by 35% for several months. People plan a protest about the shutting down of the Sentinel program in Washington. Students from a local university find out about it and decide to counter-protest. The resulting brawl leads to twenty-seven arrests which are covered in the papers for two weeks.

In May, a mutant in Denver rescues a toddler from a burning building and gets hugged by the mother on TV. The clip's shown on all the major news networks. People and mutants write letters and essays, and one of the buskers Peter passes by on his way to the grocery store writes a song about mutant-human brotherhood and plays his guitar very earnestly when he sings it. The hero mutant's found beaten to death with a pipe in July.

Peter stops stealing everything but food, and the cops stop coming to his door. Peter goes to his first Grateful Dead concert and teaches Wanda how to whistle and breaks his old table tennis record and turns seventeen.

His mother worries a lot about everything in general and nothing in particular.

* * *

13\. One evening, his mom asks him to take Wanda to the store, and to use the car, which means taking it slow all the way there and back. He thinks she just wants some time to kick back, watch TV, and maybe have a shot or two; honestly, if he were his own child Peter's pretty sure he'd get drunk every morning and stay that way all day.

When he comes back, though, the house looks just the same as ever, and his mom's sitting on the couch reading like she always does when she has some free time, cool as a cucumber.

There is one kind of weird thing he notices when he puts away the groceries: there's an empty spot next to the blender where the toaster usually sits.

There's a brand new toaster in its place by the time he gets out of bed the next morning, and he figures the old one must have broken. He sees it when he takes the trash out that evening, down at the bottom of the bin where he wouldn't have noticed it if shiny things didn't always catch his eye. At least, he thinks it used to be the toaster. Now it's a squashed ball of metal with an extension cord sticking out of it, as if it suddenly decided to crumple in on itself.

Peter goes over the rest of the kitchen very, very carefully, but nothing else has so much as a dent, and eventually he figures it must have been some sort of accident.

Other explanations nag at him, though, some nights when he can't sleep, but he tells himself they're stupid and shoves them away as best he can.

* * *

14\. In early July, he gets an invitation to apply for a fall internship at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, which will be reopening its doors early the next year.

He crumples it in his fist and throws it in the trash.

* * *

15\. Wanda gets pretty good at controlling her powers, and one day Peter rewards her with a trip to the park and the promise of ice-cream afterwards. He flops down on a bench and watches her play hop-scotch with two other little girls. She's so much better at being with people than he was, and he's pathetically grateful for it. He doesn't actually expect the world at large welcoming mutants into society any time soon, but any hope he holds out is for her. They've homeschooled her for a year and a half, now, and even though he's not bad at it (thinks, if he'd been born normal, he would have liked to teach little ki

* * *

16\. Bee stings his leg, right in the middle of a good thought.

Not a bee. Shit. Shit. Fuck. Tranq dart. Fucking—

Wanda—

* * *

17\. He wakes up alone in a small, windowless white block cell with a bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling and a pile of hay and a bucket in a corner. He's still clothed but his jacket and sneakers and goggles and pants are missing, and there's a thick plastic and metal collar hanging around his neck.

Wanda.

Wanda isn't there. He doesn't know where Wanda is.

"Wa-"

He doesn't even get out the first syllable and the collar around his neck sounds a low buzz. He's just got time to hear it before—jeeeesus fucking hell.

The shock knocks him flat onto his back and his body jerks, jackknifes on the floor so his head smacks against the concrete and continues doing so as he jerks, _smack smack smack smack smack_ so his teeth clack together and his hair flops into his eyes. The pain is—christ, it feels like being stabbed all over with red-hot knives and his muscles burn and he can't breathe—until suddenly it's over with another buzz.

He gasps. Sucks in a breath. Doesn't have the strength to move much, but there's blood in his mouth so he turns his head to the side and spits it out with little enough force that the bulk of it dribbles down the side of his cheek. His head hurts—he thinks it might be bleeding—and he thinks he's cracked one of his molars. All the muscles in his body burn like he just ran two hundred miles cold.

He bounces back from injuries faster than humans, he knows, but even so it's several minutes before he's able to sit up. Takes a little longer for his head to stop spinning. He reaches up to touch it and his hand smacks into the back of it and comes away sticky. Once he's caught his breath, he feels the collar around his neck. He can't figure out how it opens, but there's a spot where the metal meets the plastic that feels weaker. He thinks if he can work on it with his fingers like he did the glass on Magneto's cell, it'll break.

He sets his hands on either side of it, grips it tight, and _moves_ them.

And the buzzer on the collar sounds.

* * *

18\. When Peter comes back to again, he's pissed himself.

Everything hurts. His teeth don't feel okay. He can't focus his eyes.

He wants to strip off his boxers, because they're cold and wet and disgusting, but he doesn't want to be naked if they come for him. If they're watching him.

He doesn't know what to do.

He can't stand up, even though he waits, but the floor's so cold. He shuffles over on his knees to the hay and lies down with his back to the wall and his eyes on the door.

His throat hurts.

* * *

19\. The Rules, as Gathered by Peter:

. 1. No talking

. 2. Not even in an inside voice

. 3. No speeding

. 4. Throwing the bucket at the door is fine

* * *

20\. He's pretty sure they're going to come get him sometime. They wouldn't go to all the trouble of grabbing him, out in public no less, just to leave him in a cell to die. It wouldn't make sense. And he's pretty sure they couldn't have taken Wanda, not without killing a lot of other people at the park; no one knows Wanda's a mutant, anyway. So he's pretty sure that they don't have her. Hopefully. Probably.

Which means that all he has to do is wait for Erik or Charles to come get him.

* * *

21\. Here's the thing: Magda Maximoff's a badass when she's angry, and the angriest Peter's ever seen her was when she caught Rick smacking Peter across the face, so Peter figures she must be really, really furious right now.

Also: she's really smart. It doesn't matter if Erik's vanished off the face of the earth; once Magda figures out that Peter's missing, she's going to track the guy down. He might help. Peter's his son, after all, even if that doesn't mean much to the guy, and also Peter's a mutant, which apparently means quite a bit to him.

If he doesn't help, it'll take a bit longer, but Peter knows his mom will track down Charles Xavier, who definitely will help because he owes Peter so, so much, and also he isn't a murderous, terrorist psychopath.

So Peter just has to hold on until then.

* * *

22\. Problem One: Food.

When he wakes up again, his stomach actually hurts, he's so hungry.

That's not good.

Peter's only pushed very far past this point a few times. It usually doesn't end well.

He figured out one time he has to eat eight thousand calories a day to function on a normal basis, more if he wants to do anything at a decent speed without fainting.

But he's pretty sure it's been the better part of a day since the park, at least, and there hasn't been so much as a sign of life outside his cell.

He doesn't worry until he starts getting cold. His still-damp boxers cling to him when he moves, and his thighs itch and his entire lower half feels chilly, but it isn't until several hours later that he the chills seep up his back and take hold.

Peter wraps his arms around himself and sits up. He knows how this goes: hunger - cold - tremors - unconsciousness.

He's only gone as far as the last bit once, when he kept fidgeting in class because he was hungry and ended up flopping out over the principal's desk mid-lecture. The hospital said his blood sugar crashed and he could have died.

On the bright side, if whoever kidnapped him's planning on leaving him alone for a couple of days to starve the fight out of him, they're in for a nasty surprise.

On the other hand, he'd rather not be dead.

So he stumbles over to the heavy metal door, sits in front of it, and bangs as hard as he can with his fists without speeding up until his collar buzzes several minutes later.

He feels like shit for significantly longer, this time, and when he wakes back up there's still no food in the cell or sounds outside, but now he knows that someone's listening. Which is a start.

* * *

23\. The semi-solving of Problem One leads, unfortunately, directly to Problem Two: Torture.

Peter's pretty sure the collar does more than shock, because he remembers lying on his hay pile, feeling like cold-ass shit with trembling hands, far too uncomfortable to even think of sleeping, and then he wakes up in a different room strapped to a chair with thick metal bands around his arms and chest and ankles. The chair itself is bolted to the floor, and even if he didn't still have the fucking collar on, he's pretty sure he couldn't break free.

There's a long table to his right with equipment spread on it, some of it grimmer than the rest. There are weight scales, several stands full of syringes, and a few beakers full of brightly-colored liquid at the far end. At the other, a short man and a tall woman are fiddling around. They're close enough to touch, if Peter could stretch out his hand. The man's disinfecting a funnel with a long rubber tube attached to it, while the woman's mixing what looks like tomato soup and protein powder together into four separate beakers.

Peter doesn't realize someone's standing behind him until there's movement out of the corner of his eye.

It's a tall, lean man in his thirties or forties wearing a button-up shirt and a sweater vest. He moves around from behind the chair and leans down in front of Peter.

"Nothing to say? Good," the man says, waving his finger at the collar around Peter's throat. "You figured that out so quickly. Well done."

He pats Peter's head with his hand like you would a dog. Peter moves to duck away, but—

—but suddenly he doesn't want to.

His mind's still screaming at him, all his conscious thoughts coalescing into "Get away from me, you dickfaced prick," but resignation and acceptance flood over all his senses and still him. _He's earned this. He deserves far worse. He should be grateful for whatever praise he gets, and thankful he's not being punished further._

It disappears as soon as Dickface moves his hands away.

"Wha-" Peter starts before he realizes what he's doing.

The shock knocks his head back into the chair. The molar he cracked earlier breaks, and he chokes on a chunk of it. His arms and legs flop uselessly against their restraints and it just _hurts_ , everywhere.

When it's over, he sags forward, muscles burning. The metal band around his chest digs into him. His ribs ache. His eyes stream, and his breath hitches.

Dickface takes him gently by the chin and lifts his head.

"No talking," he says pleasantly. "You haven't earned that privilege yet."

He lets Peter's head drop forward again and brushes his hand over Peter's upper arm. The sense of overwhelming gratitude returns, even as Peter's wishing he had the collar off for just five seconds so he could show this guy what a pissed-off Maximoff can do.

"I can feel that, you know." The guy sits down cross-legged on the floor by Peter's chair. He drops his hands into his lap, and just like that all the anger floods back. He smiles at Peter's glare. "Can't tell exactly what you're thinking, but I have a very good idea. You need food, hmm?"

Dickface snaps his fingers, and the other man, who's been waiting with the funnel and tube in hand, steps forward. He's got something else, too, a conical wooden gag with a hole in the middle, and it isn't until he's reaching for Peter's mouth that Peter realizes what it's for.

His body tenses. He jerks his head away. Then Dickface reaches up and grabs his arm, and Peter stops fighting. His conscious mind screams at him, but the rest of him is flooded with peace and acceptance.

 _This is good for him. This is right. He hasn't earned the right to eat like a human, and it's less bother for them if it's all done quickly and got out of the way._

The wooden gag goes in his mouth, the rubber tube slips down it, and the woman comes around behind him, holds his head up with one hand, and pours the soup down the funnel with the other.

And the guy on the floor takes his hand away and panic swoops over him.

Peter's socked feet scrabble at the floor and his fingers clutch at the armrests and he tries, he tries so hard to get loose and get free and get it out of him but he doesn't manage more than squirming so the woman has to dig her fingers into his chin.

It _hurts_.

He chokes. Gags. Tries to breathe and coughs, splutters, can't breathe, can't move, the tube's moving in his throat and it's _wrong_ , he wants it out, wants it gone, he wants to go home he wants to go home he _please just wants to go home_ —

It ends. The woman sets the beaker down and lets go of Peter's head, and the man with the funnel slides the tube out of his throat and yanks the gag out of his mouth.

Peter takes a breath, chokes, and vomits all over himself.

He can't hold himself up at all when he's done. His chin dips forward and smacks against his vomit-soaked t-shirt with a wet splat. He doesn't want to break down, would give anything to keep from showing weakness in front of any of them, but when he sucks in a breath again his shoulders hitch, and he finds himself crying. He thinks it would be easier to take if they'd just beat him up or—or—

Or he doesn't fucking know, or what. He just wants someone to come fucking rescue him already. He just wants to go home.

The man with the hands unfolds himself and stands up. He reaches out to touch Peter, but Peter flinches away.

"You're making this so much harder than it needs to be," the man says. "I can make this so much easier for you, if you'll just let me." When Peter doesn't look up, he sighs and turns to the woman. "That's enough for our first time. Keep feeding him until he keeps it down, then hose him off and put him back in his cell for the night."

He walks out of the room and shuts the door behind him. The man with the funnel wipes it off with a sanitary wipe. The woman grabs the next beaker off the table and reaches for Peter's mouth again.

* * *

24\. 'Hose him off' means exactly what it sounds like. When the woman—who he's pretty sure has super strength—shoves him back into his cell, he's soaked to the skin, but his t-shirt still smells faintly of puke. It took through three beakers before he managed to keep it down, and the tube hurt like a motherfucker coming up the second time.

It's not, though, so much the dull burn in his chest or in his throat—or pretty much everywhere fucking else—that leaves him stumbling and disoriented.

It was—it felt—he didn't—

When he sits down on the pile of hay with his back to the wall, curls up with his arms around his stomach, he can still feel hands on his face, on his chin, holding him still, tugging his mouth open, fingers slipping over his gums, feels the burn of the tube thrust impersonally down his throat and the sudden, unwelcome feeling of fullness when it was over.

He wipes his hands across his face again and again and shivers through the fucking cold of the night. The light bulb never turns off, and it makes his eyes ache.

At least, he thinks, they he's definitely certain they don't have Wanda now. He's pretty sure the guy with the hands wouldn't have kept his mouth shut about it if he knew she was a mutant too. So Wanda probably is safe, after all.

At least that's something.

* * *

25\. The next day, Peter displeases the man with the hands when he's being fed, so afterwards they strip off his t-shirt and cuff his hands to the armrests of the chair still bolted to the floor, and the man with the hands leans over him and hits him repeatedly.

It's not hard; most of the hits are smacks of an open palm rather than a fist, and none of them are meant to cause lasting harm. They bruise, but no ribs crack and nothing breaks. But they're all skin to skin, open palm to face or neck or chest, and every time his hand lands, Peter's overcome with gratitude for the lessen.

Peter actually lunges at the man halfway through, but the collar buzzes and he writhes on the floor seconds that take eons to pass.

They put his t-shirt back onto him before they hose him down again.

* * *

26\. The third day, they start what the man with the hands calls 'the training game'.

The man and the woman who don't, as far as Peter can tell, speak, take turns hurting Peter. They smack him around, for example, or hold his mouth and nose shut or give him small but painful shocks with a Taser. Then the man with the hands tells them to stop, and when they do he touches Peter skin to skin and makes him feel thankful.

"They used to be like you," the man says. He looks actually proud when he looks at them, standing silent, side by side. "But I helped them understand, like I'm going to help you. We're going to do great things together. There are going to be so many of us, and we're going to make the world a better place for people of our kind."

* * *

27\. Sometimes Peter worries in the night that his mother's been hurt while she's looking for Erik. Sometimes he worries that they'll find out about Wanda and steal her too. Sometimes he worries that Erik won't come.

Sometimes he worries that Erik will come, but he'll join up with the others instead.

* * *

28\. Even being force-fed twice a day, various nutritious liquids with chalky protein powder, it's not enough food. Peter's still hungry, still cold even when he dries off long enough to feel it, still tucks shaking hands underneath his armpits at night so he can sleep. Even if they took the collar off him, he's pretty sure he couldn't make it five feet at his normal speed. He's thirsty, too, all the time, mouth dry and lips cracked. Sometimes he tries to drink some of the stale water when they hose him down, but it's never enough.

The eighth day, the man with the hands takes Peter's collar off and tells him to say thank you.

Peter can't, because his throat's so sore he can't get the words out. He tries, though, he tries so, so hard.

The man never touches him once.

When Peter goes back to his cell, there's a bucket of water in his cell. He tries holding himself back from drinking any. Lasts less than an hour.

* * *

29\. The thirteenth day, they're playing the training game, as they do every day, when the man with the hands tells the woman to step away and reaches out to Peter.

And Peter leans into his touch.

He jerks back almost as soon as he does, but the man's already grinning.

He says "Good boy, good boy," and pats Peter on the head.

And Peter realizes he's found Problem Three: Peter himself.

* * *

30\. "They used to be just like you," the man with the hands said.

Peter thinks he's starting to understand.

* * *

31\. The thirteenth night he lays awake, curled up on the straw which sticks to his still-wet t-shirt and boxers and limbs and hair, and starts wondering how long it'll take.

He won't let it happen.

He doesn't know what the man with the hands has planned, but he's pretty sure there won't be any humans left around afterwards, if he gets his way, and Peter's not going to be a part of that, no matter what. He knows he can't escape; doesn't see a way out, unless they make a mistake, and he just doesn't see that happening. And he might not be able to stop them.

But he's not going to let them use him. If no one comes to get him, and if he really starts to turn, he's going to find a way to take himself out of the equation, and tidy problems two and three in one clean go.

It's not like it's an easy decision, and he doesn't know how he'll do it, but he makes his mind up that if it comes to it he will.

He made a promise to his mom, and he's not going to break it.

He lays awake the whole night, shivering wet and cold on his side with his knees tucked up against his stomach and his arms curled over his legs. The space where his molar used to be throbs, and his entire lower jaw aches when he opens his mouth to drink. The straw digs into his side and one piece jams in between the flesh of his thumb and his fingernail when he moves.

32\. It ends up being a moot point, anyway, because the seventeenth night Peter wakes up to gunfire and a loud, long clang that follows it.

Peter sits up on his hay pile, back to the wall.

There's a slamming noise somewhere down the hall, and grunting, then several more loud bangs like metal banging into cement. Voices, too, indistinct but male. Two of them.

Then the thick metal door on his cell warps in on itself and flies out into the hallway, and Erik Lensherr walks into his cell.

There's a quick glance around the cell: the light from the ceiling that never turns off, the bucket of water and the bucket of waste, and Peter crouched on his heels on his pile of hay.

Erik's mouth twitches, just a bit, and something very loud happens to the door outside. There's a yelp, someone saying 'Erik!' with more than a little irritation, and a blond man in his twenties in what Peter can only describe as a militarized, black leather uniform jogs into view and stops dead in the doorway.

But all of that's peripheral at best. Peter's hands are numb and shaking, and he can't seem to draw breath deep enough to fill his lungs. Erik walks up until he's a couple feet away and drops into a crouch in front of him. He's wearing, incongruously, a dirty coverall with the name 'Magnus' stitched over his right pocket, and he's got grease stains near his hairline like he was drawn away from an oil change and only had time to wipe his face off.

"Are you all right?"

It's a deeply stupid question, but Erik doesn't look like he's going to move until it's answered, so Peter reaches up to the collar around his neck and shakes it, just a little. Then he lifts his finger to his lips and makes a shushing motion.

Erik reaches out his hand, and Peter snaps back from the movement so his head hits the wall, hard.

Erik leans back on his heels. Holds his hand open by his chest and curls his fingers into a fist. The collar snaps open and falls off.

Peter takes a breath and tries to clear his throat.

Either he sounds pathetic or the outside of his neck looks as awful as the inside of it feels, or both, because Erik's mouth does that twitching thing again and the light bulb above them shatters.

"Come on." Erik stands up and stretches out his hand. "Let's get out of here, hmm?"

* * *

33\. Peter tries, he really does, but it's been a long fucking two-and-a-half weeks, and when he grabs Erik's arm and tries to stand up his legs buckle.

"I can—" the blond by the door starts saying, jerking forward when Peter faceplants into Erik's chest, but Erik slides an arm around Peter's knees with the other settles the other on his shoulders and scoops Peter up like he weighs as much as Wanda.

"I have him," Erik says. "Take point."

The blond gives him a long, hard look, but he steps out into the hallway. He must be some kind of mutant, too, because when gunfire breaks out again he jerks his body and light comes flying out of his chest. Peter doesn't see what it hits, but the blond calls back an all clear, and Erik follows him out.

The door to Peter's cell is lying on the floor beyond his cell, looking like someone flattened it with a giant hammer and welded it to the concrete. Peter's pretty sure there's someone underneath it.

"Alex?" Erik calls out in a low voice.

The blond who moves like a soldier turns towards them. "I've got two down, plus the jumper. Does he know how many there were?"

Peter tries to talk, tries to clear his throat, but fails again. He curls his thumb and pinky into his fist and holds up a three instead.

"Thank you, Peter," Erik says, his voice a low rumble against Peter's ear, and it's the first time anyone has called him by his name since he was taken, and Peter's eyes burn. He turns his head into the solid warmth of Erik's chest, and his body trembles.

* * *

34\. Not thirty seconds later the tepid summer air hits Peter's skin, and he looks up again.

The three of them are in the middle of a large clearing with woods around it. There's a concrete bunker built into the ground behind them which is missing its entire top half. Ahead of them, a small aircraft is parked in front of the trees, and Peter can see a shape moving around through the cockpit window. Erik's fingers, curling around Peter's legs, twitch minutely, and what's left of the concrete bunker falls in on itself. And that's Problem Two taken care of, easy.

In the sky, hundreds upon hundreds of stars spread out in every direction as far as he can see.

* * *

35\. It must be some sort of miracle, because when Erik takes him up into the plane, Hank McCoy and Charles Xavier are waiting to meet them.

Well. Charles is waiting for them, sitting in a wheelchair a few feet from the door. Hank's fussing over a gurney and an IV stand crammed into the aisle at the back of the plane.

"Jesus Christ," Charles says when he sees them. Erik heads to the stretcher without a pause and sets Peter down on it so carefully that Peter barely feels it.

Hank's there, then, leaning over him and squinting at him behind his glasses, and Erik moves away. Peter doesn't realize he's grabbed at Erik's sleeve until Hank blinks down at his hand. He lets go immediately, face heating up, and looks away. His eyes tear for no reason.

Erik takes his hand and sits down on a seat next to the gurney like nothing happened, though Peter can practically feel Hank's hard stare. Eric leans forward a bit; two straps buckle themselves over Peter's legs and stomach, and it's all Peter can do not to think of mealtimes. His breaths hitch, and he clutches at Erik's hand like a lifeline. He knows if it were Hank strapping him in he'd probably have kicked the guy in the face, friend or not.

Hanks looks him over for a moment when he's settled, all wide eyes as if he doesn't know where to start, then reaches up and very slowly brings an IV stand near.

Peter knows he's fine now, knows Hank is only here to help and everything is fine now. But his breath keeps coming shorter and shorter and he thinks he really, really wants to let go of Erik's hand (because he's not weak, he's not, he would have figured out a way), but he's pretty sure he's just gripping it harder instead, and he can't stop he can't stop he can't stop he

"Charles?" Hanks says, calm. He backs out of Peter's sight and suddenly Charles is there instead, looking tired and grim and earnest.

"Peter, I'm just going to help you go to sleep, all right?" Charles says, and it's fine, it's fine, Peter knows it's all fine, but suddenly Charles's hand is on his face

 _(his hand is on his face_

 _You're making this harder than it has to be)_

and he _can't_.

His hand snaps out in a blur, moving at speed for the first time in weeks, and he doesn't want to hurt anyone but he won't let them touch him, he won't let them touch him

 _(he made a promise to his mom and he's not going to break it)_

and his hand smacks something hard and his elbow catches something else and then,

and then:

bee sting. On his neck.

Except it's not a bee sting this time either, it's a syringe floating in mid-air, and he just has time to look down and watch the metal plunger depress itself, smooth and steady against his neck, before things go sideways. Strong, warm hands curl around his shoulders, and they ease him back onto the gurney and brush his hair away from his forehead as he checks out.

* * *

36\. Medication doesn't usually work on Peter for very long. When he drifts back to consciousness, they're still in the plane but it's starting to be light outside. It takes a while for Peter to wake up all the way, and he feels fuzzy and off-balance when he does. He notices pain all over his body, but it's muted, muffled and distant like his mind is miles from his body.

He's wearing a warm, soft knit t-shirt, and there are at least three blankets piled on top of him, but he's still chilly, and his stomach aches from hunger.

Hank's nowhere to be seen, but the blond from the bunker—Alex—is sprawled over several seats to Peter's left, fast asleep and actually drooling. Someone's drawn a blanket over him, folding it back neatly at his shoulders. Now that Peter has a chance to look, there's a lot to appreciate about the dude's face, once you ignore the spit. Peter files that nugget away for later.

Erik and Charles are seated at a small table several seats down, playing what looks like the most intense chess match in history, because of course they are. Erik's changed, though the shirt he's wearing is a little tight on him. He's got a red spot on his cheekbone, like he got hit by the sharp end of an elbow.

Whoops.

"When did you know?" Charles is asking. His back's to Peter, but he shifts a piece across the board almost gently.

Erik leans back as if to study the board, but his line of sight is down at his hands resting in his lap. "I…had a hint the first time I met him. He said something, I—I didn't take it seriously, at the time, but I tracked him down, afterwards, and ran into Magda. She's—"

"Formidable, yes. Not someone I'd care to—ah, Peter."

Erik looks up from the chessboard and catches Peter's eye. He loses the intense stare he'd been directing in Charles's direction, and in its place comes the most restrained look of panic Peter's ever seen.

It's kind of reassuring, actually, that Erik might be just as thrown about having a long-lost mutant asshole son as Peter is about having a crazy terrorist father.

Then Charles wheels his chair around, and Peter stops feeling reassured and starts feeling like a dick, because the guy's got a truly impressive black eye.

"Please don't feel bad about it; it was entirely my fault," Charles says. He flashes Peter a smile as he draws near, and hastens to add, "That's a guess, not a read. I give you my word I won't go in your mind without your permission, all right?"

Something that was clenched in Peter's chest uncurls, and he relaxes into the stretcher, though he can't help but track Charles as the guy rolls around the stretcher and fiddles with the IV. Erik steps up on the other side, near Peter's head. Peter's not sure what he'll see if he looks up at him, so he doesn't.

"Hank and I weren't sure what your metabolism was like," he says, "So we had to guess at the dosages. We'll get that sorted out, but first I imagine you're hungry? Thirsty?"

"Easy," Erik says, and squeezes his shoulder, and Peter realizes he's jerked up, muscles tense. He lets Erik press him back down onto the gurney and tries to calm his breathing.

This is just stupid of him. Everything's fine now. He's fine now. He can stop acting weak.

 _See? I told you it was easier if you didn't fight it. It's going to happen sooner or later, and it will be so much easier if you just keep working with me._

Charles moves somewhere behind the gurney and pops back with a glass of water. He sticks a plastic drinking straw in it and hands it to Peter. Peter moves to sit up—and gets about a quarter inch off his pillow before he flops back onto it, exhausted. The glass wobbles against his stomach for a moment, but Charles grabs it before it can spill.

Then Erik leans in, slips his arm under Peter's shoulders like the night before, and sits him up. There's no lifting the gurney or propping Peter up, but Erik holds him steady as Peter takes back the glass and drinks. It takes all Peter's got not to gulp it down, but he learned his lesson the first time they left the water bucket in his cell, and he takes it slow. He tries not to think of how much weight he's lost, that Erik's got no issue holding him up one-handed, but it's either that or focus on the fact that Erik Lensherr is patiently playing nursemaid to him, and, frankly, concentrating on how easily he can count his ribs when his shirt is off is preferable.

It distracts from Charles, too, who's fixed Peter with an intense and curious stare. It's not unkind, but it's really creepy—which makes his and Erik's 'old friendship' about ten times more understandable, but doesn't really help with Peter's nerves.

"Hank," Charles says once Peter sets aside the glass for a moment, "Can't really tell the extent of the damage to your throat without more equipment, but between it and your molar, we thought you'd better take it easy on solid food for a few days."

The glass feels heavy in his hand. Peter rests the weight of it against his thigh and lets his fingers slip away from it.

"We think your healing slows down when you're under-nourished, and if we had a better sense of your calorie intake during your—during the last few weeks, Hank thinks we could kickstart your metabolism and get you back on your feet sooner. Anything at all you could tell us would help."

Peter shifts. Knocks the mostly-empty cup over between his legs. Erik picks it up and sets it to the side with his free hand. His grip with the other doesn't waver. He could tell them. Should tell them. The sooner he heals, the sooner he's back to normal. And he—he doesn't _want_ to tell anyone about it, but he thinks he wouldn't mind as much with Charles as with, like, his mom, because Charles is both a kind person and a selfish asshole, and in the grand scheme of things he just doesn't care that much about Peter as an individual beyond 'Peter, the kid who helped me and whom I therefore owe.'

But Erik?

Peter does look over at Erik then, and wishes he hadn't. Erik meets his look straight on with a neutral but firm stare of his own, and he doesn't look away until Peter does—and maybe not even then, the weirdo. And that's the thing, right there; yes, Erik is a weird-ass, creepy douche, and violent and murderous and just a general bag of unappealing dicks, and Peter knows he shouldn't care what Erik thinks of him, knows it doesn't matter, but he doesn't want to look weak in front of Erik, doesn't want Erik to _know_.

Charles sets a pen and a small pad of paper in his lap. Peter grabs the pen. His eyes flicker over towards Erik, so he can just make out Erik's leg where it disappears below the side of the gurney. He's kneeling on the seat across from the one Alex is still fast asleep on, hunched forward so he can help hold Peter up. Even Peter's back hurts thinking about it, and he's not old like Erik and Charles.

He looks back and Charles and sets the pen down. Charles's expression shutters, though he brings up a smile and opens his mouth to say something encouraging, but Peter beats him to it.

"Look?" The word comes out a harsh whisper, but the water's helped, and Peter manages. He points up at his head. "'S'faster."

Charles takes a long, deep look at him. "You're sure?"

No.

Peter nods.

Charles shares another look with Erik—and it's not until later that Peter wonders if they were speaking—before he brings his hands up and sets his thumbs on either side of Peter's temples. Peter doesn't shiver, thank God, but he's wound tight as a coil, and he knows Erik can feel it too.

Shit. Shit shit shit shit. This was a stupid idea. He's just going to embarrass himself even more than he would have otherwise, and Erik's going to know how weak he is, and he'll never be able to look his mom in the eye again.

"All right, Peter, just relax. Try and focus on the memory you want to share with me, and I'll be in and out as quick as I can, all right? If you want me to stop at any moment, just think it at me and I will, immediately."

Peter nods again and closes his eyes. He feels Erik's arm tighten around him. Then that's gone, and he's back in the bunker, back on that first day when he woke up in the feeding chair, four beakers on the table and a funnel down his throat, and he wants it out—wants it gone—and then it _is_ gone, and he's back in his bedroom reading Wanda her favorite book, the one about the tiger who came to tea and ate all the food. They're hunched over on his bed in a sunny shaft of light, warm and comfortable and tired from a really intense game of tag that took all morning that ended up mostly being Peter running around and Wanda trying to trip him with one of her spheres, though Peter's not going to mention that to his mom that evening.

The touch to each side of his forehead drops away. Charles squeezes his arm and ducks down to meet Peter's gaze when Peter opens his eyes again.

"Thank you, Peter," Charles says, with an emphasis on his name. His fingers are white-knuckling the bedrail, but he doesn't look like if he's pitying Peter, which is a relief. Peter looks away anyway. "That should help. We'll…we'll see what we can do about your throat. And get you back on a normal diet as soon as possible."

He backs off and starts wheeling himself away. "I'll get with Hank on those dosages. Erik, soup. And Peter?"

He waits until Peter's looking at him before he continues.

"Nothing he said about you was true. I've met war heroes that weren't half as brave as you."

And he wheels himself into the cockpit and shuts the door behind him.

* * *

37\. And it's a very nice note for Charles to leave on, but it leaves Peter, hot-faced and sweaty-palmed, alone with Erik; Erik, whom he just obviously excluded from information about his time away and whom Peter would far rather not be alone with right now. Erik, who is levitating a metal thermos towards them with the same seriousness as when he almost slaughtered the sitting president and most of his cabinet.

"Cream of chicken," he says pleasantly when the thermos settles in Peter's lap.

What do you even do with someone like that? Inquire about the soup? Ask them how their terrorism's going? Both?

Peter sticks with repeating "Cream of chicken?" for the moment. He brings the glass up and takes a sniff. It smells all right. He lifts it to his mouth and takes a deep breath, but he just. He can't. He freezes with the cup against his lips and doesn't move.

"It's all right," Erik says. "Just take it slow."

Hysteria bubbles up in Peter's throat, but he tamps it down. Right. Slow and easy. It's not like he can hold off eating forever. And, Jesus, it's not like this is something he should be scared of. It's fine now. He's fine, now. Everything is fine. He's just being stupid.

He tips the cup forward and takes a gulp before he can rethink it.

. 1. Things that feel like swallowing thick soup after you've been force-fed and worn a shock collar for two-and-a-half weeks:

. a. Gargling razor blades

. b. Chugging vodka with a matchstick chaser

. c. Both of the above, coincidentally

. 2. Things actually more embarrassing than being hysterical in front of your estranged father:

. a. Coughing up a large mouthful of cream-of-chicken soup on the both of you

. b. After which you cough so hard one of your previously only-cracked ribs breaks

. c. And when you're done coughing, you're so weak you can't even hold yourself up any more

"It's no problem," Erik says as he strips the top blanket. He sets the now-empty thermos on the counter behind Peter's head. Peter doesn't have the breath to answer back, yet, so he shuts his eyes and tries to focus on getting there. Erik fusses around some more, spreading out a new blanket and fiddling around with what smells like more soup in the space behind the gurney.

When he starts patting at Peter's chin with a napkin, though, Peter finds his breath.

"I've got it." It hurts more to talk than it did earlier, and his rib aches, but like hell if he's going to let Erik fucking Lensherr wipe his face like a baby.

Erik surrenders the napkins with a placating gesture, but Peter's pretty sure he catches the guy grinning as he turns around. And, yeah, irritating Peter's probably the quickest way to motivate him, but it irritates him even more that the asshole's figured him out this easily.

"If you want to try again, I can wrap your ribs after you eat."

Smug fucking bastard.

"Yeah, fine."

Of course, this time he has an even harder time sitting up and staying up, thanks to his rib, so in the end Erik has to bodily climb up on the bed behind him, prop Peter up against his shoulder, and help him hold the cup.

Peter kind of wishes he could jump out of the plane, right then and there.

"You don't have to do this," he says after he's taken a couple of sips. It's easier now he's pacing himself, and the ache in his throat has dulled a little—though he's pretty sure that's more to do with what feels like ground-up pills on his tongue when he swallows.

Erik, of course, pretends like he didn't hear him, because he's a dick.

"Really," Peter continues after the next sip when Erik pulls the cup away.

Erik sighs.

"You came," Peter says. It's hard to get the words out, but he's intent. "That's enough. 'S not like we're—I mean, you're not exactly—"

"We should probably discuss this when you're not drugged," Erik finally says. "But I wouldn't be here if I didn't want to be."

"But—"

"If I'd known your mother was pregnant, Peter," Erik continues. The cup nudges against Peter's lips again, and Peter takes another sip. "I never would have left."

"Wait," a sleepy voice says from somewhere beside Erik. "What?"

Erik doesn't even look. "Alex, go make yourself useful. In the cockpit."

"Erik." Alex pulls himself laboriously out of the seat and stumbles to his seat. His hair's smashed flat on one side, and there's crusted spit to the left of his lip. "You do realize no one fits in there if Charles is in his wheelchair? I literally can't-"

"Now," Erik says.

Alex goes.

He does pat Peter's leg through the blankets with a friendly "Hey, kid," as he goes, and they hear his clear "Holy _shit_ , Hank," as he shuts the door to the cockpit.

"So," Peter says after a second. "Cream of chicken."

"Hank made it." Erik swipes a thumb across the rim of the cup and tastes it. "He's surprisingly talented in the kitchen."

"'S good. Think it's drugged."

"Is it working?"

"Hmm," Peter says. Everything seems softer around the edges again, and Erik's chest and shoulder feel warm and comfortable rather than, of course, massively humiliating, so. "Yeah."

"Good," Erik says.

* * *

38\. The next time he wakes up, he's lying in an actual bed in a warm, sunny room with lots of windows and bookcases, and his mom's sitting beside him and holding his hand.

"Hey," Peter starts—

-and he doesn't get any farther, actually, because his mom looks down at him, goes, " _God_ , Peter," with shining eyes, and scoops him up into a hug.

She's wearing the scratchy green sweater that Peter doesn't like because it feels like a thousand nettles scrubbing at his skin in slow motion when she brushes past him. Her long hair's loose and frizzy and makes his neck itch where it falls. She cries into his hair.

It hits him, then, that he'd thought he'd never see her or Wanda again. He hugs her back and lets it roll over him.

* * *

39\. "You're not okay," she says about seven minutes later. She runs her hand over his left cheek. "You're all bruised, up, honey."

It feels like the bunker was so long ago, but it must not even be a day since they broke him out. So twenty-four hours ago, he was probably in the middle of yesterday's training game, the one where the woman with superstrength set him in a bath and held his head underwater repeatedly. It probably did bruise his face, now he thinks about it.

"And Xavier said you're—you're not okay, Peter." She brushes his hair away from his forehead and looks like she wants to ask him about what happened.

"Where's Wanda?" he asks, instead.

Wanda, it turns out, only left the room ten minutes ago, and is currently playing hide and seek with Alex, who is apparently 'a nice boy'.

"It's such a big mansion, she's having the time of her life, now you're back, and—"

"I thought they'd got her," he blurts out. "When I woke up after—after they took me. I thought they'd taken her too, and—I swear, Mom, I didn't let them know she's a mutant too, I didn't tell anyone—"

"Of course you didn't," she says when she's hugged him again. She rubs his back and curls her hand around his head like she used to when he was little and hurt himself running. "I never thought you would, _Pietro_. You're such a good big brother."

* * *

40\. The next time he wakes up, it's Erik on the chair next to his bed, feet propped up on his mattress, paging through a hardbound copy of _The Metamorphosis_.

"I really wouldn't," Erik says when Peter sits up and looks longingly at the window seat, soft and full of pillows and swimming in sunlight.

"I'm fine." Peter shifts his weight, ready to tear off the blankets and swing his legs over the side of the bed.

"Of course you are," Erik says. He flips to the next page. "And you're also wearing a catheter."

Disliking a person because they're a dick, Peter discovers, is actually an entirely distinct feeling from disliking them because they're a psychotic murderer.

* * *

41\. Things Peter wakes up to over the next three days, in order:

. 1. Erik, still reading Kafka

. 2. Hank, jiggling his IV lines while his mom sleeps in the chair next to his

. 3. His mom, reading _Surfacing_ by Margaret Atwood

. 4. Erik, having finished Kafka and started on the left-behind Atwood despite there being literally hundreds of other books not five feet away from him, though at least he doesn't move the bookmark

. 5. His mom and Wanda, playing checkers next to his bed*

. 6. Erik, with an open copy of TIME magazine on his lap, in the middle of an intense argument with Charles, apparently; Peter can't tell until Erik storms off to the other end of the room, because: Telepathy Bonus #1: People eavesdropping on your spats? Not actually a thing.

. 7. Alex, sitting cross-legged on the chair and playing solitaire on a pillow he's laid over the twin blanketed bumps of Peter's legs**

*Wanda accidentally smacks him in the eye with her doll, not used to a Peter with slow reflexes, and throws herself into a hug right over his broken rib. It's pretty great anyway.

**"What, did Hank make a rota?" Peter asks when he wakes up and sees Alex staring back.

"Well, yeah." Alex purses his lips together. "It's Hank. What'd you expect?"

And Peter—well, he's got no answer to that. It's not like he knows Hank that well, really, but he totally seems like the sort of guy, now he thinks about it. "Huh."

Alex waves a card at him. "He's got you on some medications he cooked up in his lab—don't ask me what—and said they're probably safe, but he wants someone with you until you're off them in case you have a heart attack or something."

Peter almost takes his IVs out, but Alex distracts him with poker until he gets tired again. He even pretends like he doesn't notice Peter's using his powers to cheat.

Hot _and_ nice. Peter doesn't even complain when Alex doesn't let him go back to sleep until he drinks down all Hank-prescribed thirty-two ounces of soup, that's how much he's impressed.

* * *

42\. The fourth day after the rescue, Hank declares him well enough to get out of bed and walk around the mansion if he wants, though he's cautioned not to use his powers, on pain of probably fainting.

It's surprisingly exciting, especially given how Peter can only wander for at most a half hour before he has to head back to eat. Hank has him on eight meals a day, at the moment. It's weird, because back in the bunker he had enough energy to get around, but now he's at the mansion it's like he's been sapped of it.

"Stress and adrenaline," Charles says when Peter tells him that. "They kept you up and alert when you were in danger, but now that your mind knows it's safe, your body's catching up to it."

(Charles finds him at a window seat overlooking the sunrise that morning before anyone else is up. He invites Peter to tea in the kitchen and doesn't ask him any questions about the—about the bunker. Peter's been expecting questions, now his throat's healing up quickly since he's on the Hank McCoy Plan of Nutrition and Experimental Drugs, but so far everyone's been pretty good about it.

It's probably why he spills his guts to Charles at the kitchen table.

He doesn't tell about everything. Bits, here and there. A little bit about the guy with the hands (Dickface, he remembers, before he touched him), about the light bulb that wouldn't shut off and how they hosed him off every night ["Yeah," Charles interjects, "You were mildly hypothermic when we got you out, actually."]. He even lets Charles poke around in his brain a little after he lets a mention of the training game slip. It's different than the eating thing; Charles pulls up a good memory for Peter—his first Pink Floyd concert—and goes digging around behind it, so Peter doesn't even know what Charles looks at.

"Would you like to have tea again tomorrow morning?" is all that Charles says about the memories, aside from clapping him on the shoulder and going 'You've been so strong through all this, really', which is lies, because Peter's been anything but, but Peter says yes to the tea, because he's having trouble sleeping in late and time passes slowly enough already even when he does have things to do.)

Peter's sure Charles is right about the stress, because Charles is an actual genius, according to Alex, but it doesn't stop it irritating the hell out of him when he falls asleep in the kitchen in the middle of their talk and wakes up to Hank very quietly trying to make breakfast around him.

* * *

43\. Broccoli and Cheddar - Potato and Chicken - Cream of Chicken - Tomato

* * *

44\. That afternoon, Magda tracks him down in the library, where he's helping Wanda build a fort out of what in retrospect are probably very expensive books. She tells him she's going to be on the phone with her work for a couple of hours, in case he needs her.

He feels like a dick, then, because he hadn't even thought of her work and how she's probably taking her own sick days off to be with him. She sees it in his face, and she leans in to reassure him and puts her hand soothingly on the back of his neck

 _It rubbed at the skin underneath when the water hit him, the plastic clinging and chafing it raw. One time he had a nightmare and must have spoken, because he woke up to the buzzer. His body wasn't allowed to go at speed, but his mind still moved quicker than all the world around him, so he had enough time to fully appreciate the dread before it hit him, each and every time._

and Peter's gone, just like that.

He doesn't stop until he hits the lake at the far north of the estate. Stepping into the chilly water snaps him back to himself. He's got about half a second to notice the light-headedness and realize, _hey, Hank was right!_ before he faints.

* * *

45\. "—is he?"

Peter wakes up soaking wet again.

But it's fine, now. Because the sun's shining down on him, and he's slung over someone's shoulders, gripped tightly around the legs like they'd actually care if he fell off and hurt himself. Also, from where he is he's got a perfect view of their ass, and it is an ass he recognizes, having taken careful notice of it previously.

Alex Summers is one guy he really wouldn't mind sticking his dick in.

There's this bizarre honking noise, then, and Peter takes a peek over Alex's shoulder and—oh. Oh, right. Telepath.

"Charles," Erik is saying so earnestly that it would be ridiculous even if it were an actual serious situation. "Charles, what—"

"I'm so sorry. Peter's—Peter's just fine, Erik," Charles manages before he doubles over again and can't stop laughing, the fucker.

Alex, at least, pays the two idiots no attention as he carries Peter all the way back to his bedroom, where Hank's got an IV, a warm change of clothes, and four chicken salad sandwiches waiting.

* * *

46\. "It wouldn't hurt you to pick up a book," Erik says when Peter complains that evening about being so bored of bed. "Or even a magazine."

"I have a lot of magazines."

Erik quirks an eyebrow.

"Oh my God," Peter says. "You're disgusting. Real magazines. With articles."

"About?"

Peter shrugs. "I dunno. Music. Stuff. Whatever."

Erik lets it drop and turns back to his _Quarterly Journal of Biology_. Peter falls asleep listening to him flip the pages.

* * *

47\. Wanda spends the afternoon with him since he's not allowed out of bed for twenty-four hours, per Hank's most recent orders. She makes him play dolls with her, asks him to read and pokes at his throat when his voice still sounds scratchy, and lectures him about magnets, which she's learned all about thanks to Erik, who apparently spent the bulk of his morning making her dolls fly around the study with strips of metal around their arms at her request.

She stays through naptime and falls asleep snuggled up with her head on Peter's shoulder. It's hot and heavy and sweaty from all the running around she did after lunch, looking for secret passageways and playing tag in the garden with Alex and their mom.

* * *

48\. "What was he like back then?" he asks his mom when she comes in to grab Wanda for supper.

Magda leans back, takes a long look at him, and sighs.

"Different," she says. "But in many ways the same."

* * *

49\. The Story, as Summarized By Magda:

. 1. Erik Lensherr wasn't lying when he said he would have stayed if he'd known about Peter

. 2. Magda knew. That's why she didn't tell him.

. 3. But there's a difference between 'I thought he would be dangerous to a child' and 'I thought being around him would be dangerous for a child'

. 4. When Peter was missing, she knew he would help at all costs

. a. Even if the people holding Peter were mutants

. b. Even if they believed in everything he believed in

. 5. He's still an asshole, though.

* * *

50\. He falls asleep at his window seat at eight and wakes up four hours later. Someone's taken his shoes off and spread a blanket over him, and there's a copy of the latest issue of Rolling Stone on an empty chessboard at the table. Peter keeps the blanket and grabs the magazine and wanders down to the kitchen in search of food.

He's not expecting to find Alex lying under the sink with a toolkit or Hank leaning over it and jiggling the faucets.

"Try it again?" Hank's saying when he hears Peter and his head whips up. He takes in the blanket around Peter's shoulders, and his eyes narrow. "Hungry?"

Peter nods and heads for the fridge, but Hank waves him off and points him to a chair.

"Yeah, don't make me carry your scrawny ass upstairs again," Alex calls out.

Peter's face heats up, and he's pathetically grateful Alex can't see him from under the sink.

Hank grabs sandwich fixings from the fridge but grabs a box from the counter and tosses it on the table. "You look pale."

Little Debbies.

"Oh my god." The box is open and the wrapper's gone in a quarter-second, though Peter slows down to take the first bite. It's a moment that deserves savoring.

This. This is the life.

"I didn't think you guys ate these," he manages after the first one's gone. He leans his head on his arms and moans in happiness. His mom would be ashamed of him for talking with his mouth full, but he has an entire box of Little Debbies in front of him for the first time in three weeks: everything else in life is irrelevant.

"We don't," Hank says. "Mayo?"

"So, Hank, if I got sick would you make me sandwiches?" Alex asks.

Hank snorts. "Fuck you, Summers."

Peter wonders suddenly if he can still fit an entire cupcake in his mouth in one go. What the hell.

Alex clambers to his feet loudly and tests the faucet. "Good to g—hey, is that for me?"

Somewhere in the periphery of his sugar-induced bliss, Peter hears three plates thump down on the table. He's so comfortable, though, he doesn't want to get up. Getting up requires moving, and moving is overrated.

"Hey." A warm, calloused hand shakes his shoulder. He groans and doesn't open his eyes. Too much work. "Jesus, he's worse than Sean."

Hank's glass thumps onto the table harder than usual, but his voice is steady. "It's his metabolism. He'll keep falling asleep like this until he gets back to his normal weight. I think."

Alex pulls back a chair and sinks into it with a sigh. "Shouldn't he eat, then?"

"Probably." There's the sound of a drawer opening, then, seconds later, what's unmistakably a fork pokes his arm. "Hey. Hey, Peter. Wake up."

Peter groans. "'M awake." He swats out at the fork, but Hank pokes him again until he sits up.

"Eat." Hank, at the far end of the table pushes the plate—with three ham and cheese sandwiches—at him with the fork, then points it at a glass of chocolate milk next to Peter's elbow. He and Alex have Heinekens, but Peter knows it would be pointless to ask.

Peter grumbles, but he grabs the first sandwich and bites in. It's like it kickstarts his hunger when it hits his stomach, and he pulls the plate towards him.

"So," he says after a second when Alex and Hank seem happy to eat without talking. "Who's Sean?"

Alex chokes on his beer. Hank's mouth twitches, and he sets his sandwich down and swallows.

"Sean Cassidy," Alex says when he catches his breath. He glances at Hank. "We trained here together, with Charles and Erik and Raven."

"Don't bring him to Charles." Hank picks his sandwich back up. "Sean died, a few years back. It hit him pretty hard."

"Sorry."

Alex shrugs. Hank takes another large bite.

"So, you all trained with Erik?" Peter tries not to sound too interested. Judging by the look Alex and Hank flash each other, he fails.

"Ten years ago," Hank says. "But, yeah. He and Charles brought us all together."

Alex pushes his plate back and leans back with his beer. "What'd you want to know?"

* * *

51\. Charles brings him tea in the morning, along with a pack of cards.

"Something wrong?" Charles asks after their third hand. "I'm not reading your mind, but you haven't so much as tried cheating once."

Peter tosses his cards down on the tray. "I'm fine."

"Mmhmm." Charles shuffles the cards and looks inscrutable.

Peter huffs.

"Peter," Charles starts.

"It's Erik." Peter grabs a cookie—oatmeal sprinkled liberally with chocolate chips, which is apparently Alex's doing—and chomps down on it.

Charles sighs.

"He's a complicated person to have as a friend," Charles says. He wheels his chair up to the window. "I'm sure even more so as a father."

Peter swallows. "But you're still his friend."

"I'm—I think," Charles says, "That being a good person isn't one decision you can make once and get out of the way; it's an option you have in every single choice you make, every day, for as long as you live, and choosing one way in the morning doesn't mean you can't change your mind in the afternoon. Erik's made some terrible decisions that caused harm to—to many people, but at the moment he's letting them lie in the past, and he has the opportunity before him to let them stay there."

"But—"

"And if he doesn't, it's his choice and his choice alone. The rest of us will still be here. And there will always be a place for you at our school, Peter, no matter what."

Peter nods, because, at least, everyone's made the last part perfectly clear since the first time he woke up here.

"And Peter? I saw what you planned on, if you couldn't get out. There was never any third problem in that bunker. Never will be. If Erik leaves family like you behind for his vendetta, he's an idiot." Charles wheels himself back to his place by the bed. His blue eyes sparkle. "Now, are you going to cheat me out of my pocket change, or are you going to mope the morning away?"

* * *

52\. Magda's frowning when she comes up to see him after breakfast.

"Work called," she says. "They want me back on Monday. But I can ask them for more time to—"

"I'm fine," he says. He rethinks. "I'll be fine. You should go."

"You're happy here."

He shrugs. Happy's a strong word for a place that's basically been an infirmary, but, when he thinks of it, "Yeah."

Magda tugs him in and presses her lips to his forehead. "That's all I ask. Besides, you'll be seeing us every weekend. Charles wants to help Wanda with her powers."

"But that's four hours—"

"It's for Wanda," Magda says. She smiles. "And for you. And there's nothing I wouldn't do for either of you."

* * *

53\. He finds Erik sitting on the grass by the lake, skipping rocks. There's a book open face-down in his lap, naturally, but Erik's not paying it any attention. He looks up as Peter approaches but doesn't speak, tossing a flat stone so it skips eleven times before sinking.

Peter finds another and sends it off with a _flick_. It skips twenty-three times before it skids onto the ground on the other side.

Peter grins.

Erik laughs. He frowns, though, when Peter hitches up the blanket he's wearing over his shoulders and eyes it with distaste.

"If you're cold all the time, we'll have to get you a jacket. There's a—"

"I like silver," Peter says, because he's pretty sure he knows the type of jacket Erik will buy for him unprompted, and that is so not his style.

Erik heaves a very put-upon sigh but doesn't say anything, so Peter counts it as a win. Peter flops down next to him and curls the blanket tight so it's wrapped around him like one of Hank's breakfast crepes.

"You're still here," Peter says eventually. He opens one eye and finds Erik looking at him. "You don't have to be."

Erik grabs another rock and sends it off. "Do you want me to leave?"

Peter shrugs. Grass snags against the blanket and breaks. It smells so green. "I'm just saying. You could be off fighting…whoever you fight."

Erik stretches so Peter hears his back pop. "I've been fighting for so long," he answers, "I'm tired. I don't agree with Charles, and if they come for me I won't hold back, but I'd like to stay for a while. If that's fine with you."

Peter hmms under his breath. His stomach growls. The water in the lake ripples past them and keeps on, steady.

"I'm a shitty son," he says eventually.

"As it happens," Erik says. "I'm a terrible father."

"Awesome."

They lie in peace for almost thirty seconds before Peter's stomach growls again. He peeks up towards the house and sees a smiling Wanda running towards them, still a couple hundred feet away.

"Wanda looks hungry," he says. He shuts his eyes again and lets his head smack against the grass.

"Wanda looks hungry," Erik repeats. He sounds very unimpressed, and Peter opens his eye to see—yes, there it is, the eyebrow of disapproval. It disappears, though, and a wide, predator grin spreads over his face. "You know, Charles has an enormous sweet tooth. Used to keep a secret stash of Belgian chocolates in his study."

"Oh, really?"

"I'm sure," Erik finishes, "He wouldn't mind if we just took a look."

* * *

54\. He does. He really does, actually.

But the chocolates are delicious.

* * *

CONTENT NOTES: Content Notes:

Peter, while underage (17), is kidnapped. His captivity starts at section 17 and continues through section 32. While kidnapped, he is tortured by:  
1\. Electric shock from a collar activated when he speaks or uses his powers or when the kidnappers are displeased  
2\. Force-feeding. It's mentioned in several sections, but there is a graphic description of it in section 23.  
3\. Beating  
4\. Smothering/asphyxiation (mentioned)  
5\. Water torture (mentioned)  
6\. Dehumanization (treated as an object in ways, never referred to by name)  
7\. Attempted brainwashing  
8\. Having his emotions controlled by a mutant with that power.  
Note: The physical torture is enhanced by the emotional control, as Peter is made to feel grateful for it. This emotional manipulation is used in the attempt to brainwash Peter.

Peter ends up with some big self-worth/self-confidence issues, post-kidnapping (though not all of them are a result of the kidnapping).

 **Note on suicidal ideation:** At one point, in section 31, Peter decides that he'll commit suicide if it's necessary in order to keep from becoming brainwashed. No attempt is ever made, but his decision is mentioned/alluded to several times later on.

 **Note on non-consensual/sexual assault issues:** Although there is no sexual content in this fic, I realized that, albeit unintentionally, one of my descriptions of Peter's reactions to the aftermath of the forcefeeding could be seen as very metaphorical of rape. This is in section 24, in the paragraph which starts with 'When he sits down'.


End file.
